Minette glanced worriedly at Remus, then turned her attention back to the stove. Remus hadn't moved for an hour now, and Minette had no idea how to rouse him from the trance he seemed to be in. After rushing out of bed to find him stumbling through the hallway the night before, Minette had gotten a stammered explanation from Remus about the night's events. She had woken up again this morning, vaguely hoping that it had all been a nightmare when Remus wasn't on her bed in the morning. Her hopes had been quickly dissolved when she emerged to find Remus sitting at the kitchen table, clutching a mug and staring at it with a look that told Minette that he was far, far away in his mind. When she had spoken to him, he had nodded and mumbled replies, but Minette quickly gave up on conversation, deciding that some situations just needed silence, and this was one of them. Compulsively turning to cooking when nothing else was working was a proud Espoir-famliy tradition, which Minette decided to take up that morning.
After what could have been minutes or hours with no way to tell, Minette heard a door closing and the footsteps of her father coming toward the kitchen. He shuffled into the kitchen, staring blearily out from behind his glasses and sniffing the air hopefully.
"Minet? Are you making bac-" he started before starting at sight of Remus sitting at the table. "Remus? 'S that you? What are you doing back?"
"I…" Remus began, looking up from his coffee mug. "Last night," he tried again, but Minette cut in.
"Yes! Yes I am making bacon!" she said just a little too loudly. She turned off the burner and stepped toward her father. "And good thing you're here, because… because…" She took a great gulp and looked down, seeming to realize that this was one of those times when you just couldn't fill the void with chatter. "I'm sorry…" she mumbled. "I'll explain it to you, Dad." She cast a glance back in Remus' direction.
Remus nodded slightly and gave Minette a weak smile. "I need to be, er, going anyway. I've got that meeting for…" His look became distant again, and he shook his as though to clear it. "I'll… I'll be back later, so see you then?"
Minette gave Remus another small smile before leading her father out of the room. Remus turned and disapparated.
For all the worlds and ages that seemed to have passed, it was still early in the morning. Remus stood outside of his house once more, taking a deep breath and not allowing himself to look up before walking through the door.
It was odd what you notice when you actually take a good look at a familiar place. You think you know everything about your room or your pet or your best friend, and then one day you notice that they've got a chair or a spot or a moustache that you could have sworn wasn't there the day before. Remus noticed for the first time how spectacularly clean everything in the house was. It was almost eerie how calm and still and perfect everything was until Remus' eyes would drift over a smashed table here, and scorches on the walls there, and the smashed railing of the staircase jutting out in front of him, and reality would hit him like a bludger to the face.
Remus took a step forward onto a creaking floorboard and suddenly found a wand pressed to his throat. The other person almost immediately let him go, and Remus recognized him as the Auror, Elphias, from the night before.
"Sorry, there, didn't realize it was you," the Auror apologized hastily. "Ready to go, then?"
"What? Go where?" Remus asked dazedly.
"The Ministry, of course, for questioning," he replied impatiently, gripping Remus' arm tightly and steering him around so they were standing side-by-side. Before Remus could even think of a reply, they were Apparating and Remus couldn't have gotten a word out if he wanted to. Remus was lead from the main room by the Auror, who still had a firm grip on Remus' arm sooner than he could take in even the sparkling fountain or the gleaming floors in front of him. He was led to the elevator and stood alone with Elphias, and Remus felt that the time had long since passed for any conversation between them, even if either had been willing.
Presently they stepped off the elevator and down a wide hallway to a small room with several chairs up against the far wall and one set in the middle of the room. A small, slightly cluttered desk was pushed into the corner, and another wizard was leaning against the wall next to it, and stood up quickly when Remus entered with Elphias behind him.
"About time," the other wizard sighed. "You- Remus- sit there." He pointed at the chair. "Doge- a moment before we start?"
Remus sat obediently as the two wizards turned their backs to him and talked for a moment, their voices low so that Remus could only catch an occasional word of their conversation.
"Yes…right away, but first…yes…did you know?"
"Werewolf? …Well, yes then…blimey…"
Remus' stomach dropped. They knew. Of course they knew. Both of the wizards were casting odd glances quickly over their shoulders, as though trying to see if Remus was going to suddenly transform before their eyes. Remus had long since learned to shrug off this kind of behavior from strangers, but something else was gnawing away at him. What if they thought that he had planned all of this? What if they believed he had been working with the Death Eaters? Remus' hands began shaking badly as he thought of everything that this would lead to: a life in Azkaban, never seeing his friends again, never seeing Minette again…
Remus gripped his hands tightly together in his lap and stared at them as his knuckles turned white. He just had to stay calm. He was innocent. They surely wouldn't be able to get enough proof to convict an innocent man? The Auror had been there, had seen the Death Eaters threatening Remus, had seen Remus' pain. But even as he thought this all, there was a part of him that didn't believe any of it. He remembered the letter from the Death Eaters and the looks that the wizards in the room had just given him. He tried to suppress panic as the night before flashed through his mind for the thousandth time since it had happened, searching for some solid proof in his favor.
Remus was so lost in his thoughts that he nearly jumped out of his seat when the Aurors began talking to him. He could barely register Elphias Doge's words, but distantly realized that the wizard was talking uncomfortably about Veritaserum when the other wizard grabbed Remus' head and roughly poured a few drops down Remus' throat. As the vaguely bitter liquid rolled down Remus throat, the questioning began.
As always, I'm horribly, horribly sorry that I'm taking so long between chapters, but I'm busy and have had writer's block and my brain is going into denial as we're getting closer and closer to the end of "Fleeting Love." I'm fairly sure that I've lost most of my readers with my sporadic updating, but, hopefully, I'll gain some new ones. And, if not, I'm really only doing this to contribute my little perspective on the HP universe, and if no one else appreciates that, I'll live on.
If you don't want another rant like that one, or if you just have some opinion, good or bad, about the story, remember to leave a review!
